Tag Archives: Recording

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I’m pretty excited about this random eBay purchase! Honestly I just wanted a portable cassette player so I could listen to tapes of my old band to pinch ideas from. Having the option to record via USB right into the DAW was just a bonus, especially for $15 new!

Officially it’s called the “Super USB Cassette Capture” and it’s got that made in China cheapness about the plastic. But it does feel solid mechanically and definitely does exactly what it says it does: play cassettes and offer a USB computer interface to record from cassette into a Digital Audio Workstation.

Included in the package: cassette player, mini USB cable, cheap earbuds, instruction manual in reasonable English, and a 3″ minidisc containing Audacity, the free Open Source DAW. The instruction manual also gives the web addresses for downloading both Audacity and Lame (which it recommends to use for making MP3s). If you already have Garageband or any DAW at all, you don’t need any additional software.

Outputs: 1/8 phono (headphone) and what I understand is a USB 2.0 Mini B connector.

The manual says it will run on USB power. Otherwise, 2 AA batteries are required.

I was able to record very easily into Logic by connecting the USB cable, selecting input device “USB PnP Audio Device”, arming an empty track and hitting record, then playing the cassette. The only variable was the cassette player volume, which determines the input level, but the recording was clean.

The latest book by award winning producer, mixer, and recording engineer Eric Sarafin (aka Mixerman) is hot off the presses and already stirring up controversy in the indie recording world. His hold-no-punches style is frankly a refreshing change in a sea of know-it-all experts that offer endless tail-chasing advice on how to record, mix, and write music at home.

What his new book “Musician’s Survival Guide to a Killer Record” does best is tell you how to get out of your own way and learn to enjoy the process of making music again. In other words, you don’t need to know everything there is to know about recording and mixing, just use what you have and make the music that stokes your own fire.

Along the way, he lays out all the basic info you need to buy and use recording gear, audio software, and even how to record and mix unusual instruments. There is recording advice, production advice, mixing advice, but above all, the means to get back to focusing on the fun part, making music. Recommended for struggling indie musicians.

My pick of the week is the latest, greatest version of Apple’s digital audio workstation, Logic Pro X 10.3. This is no minor point release, but an overhaul of an already world-class DAW. You must have OS version El Capitan (10.11) or greater to install it, but reluctant as I was to leave the comfort of 10.9, even that upgrade was a performance bonus.

The actual list of new features, enhancements, and bug fixes in 10.3 is so long I’m not even going to try to cover more than a few standouts. The full release notes are here:

Some of the more obvious changes are with the UI itself.

The colors are different – the background is lightened from the bold darkness of 10.2, it’s now somewhere between the look of v9 and X. This is to make it easier to see in different lighting conditions.

And the buttons and tools all have a simplified 2d look that goes along with the aesthetic of the last couple OS versions. The whole thing is very responsive and slick.

My personal favorite changes in 10.3:

When you move the ends of a region, a ghost region appears so you can better see where you are in the audio file waveform.

There is a new standalone loudness meter that measures in LUFS (Loudness Units).

The cursor icon now changes more obviously and intuitively for the different selected tools.

You now get the choice of stereo vs dual mono in each stereo track, and true stereo panning. (What was it before? I don’t even know!)

Less obvious changes:

Faster startup and shutdown times

Less unexpected quitting when switching between projects

Touch bar support for the latest MacBook Pros

64-bit summing engine and support for 256 busses per project

Ability to process clips separately within the same audio track

Bottom Line

If you have OS X 10.11 or higher, this is a great update to a great DAW. And if you don’t, I recommend updating. My mid-2012 MBP is so much happier with El Capitan, and so am I. And though I’m not 100% thrilled to be re-re-learning my daily use DAW, I’m loving the new features so far.

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